I think what gave earlier Trek so much soul was the non-human characters that allowed you to explore humanity through them. Spock, Data, Odo all lived in and around humans, and explored what that meant.
The pilot of TNG was 2 episodes, so in some numbering, those are combined into one episode (hence this is episode 4), and others have that as episode 1 and 2 (hence it would be episode 5).
TOS is even more problematic with numbering as they filmed/aired in different orders, so some places list very different episode numbers as others.
I think what gave earlier Trek so much soul was the non-human characters that allowed you to explore humanity through them. Spock, Data, Odo all lived in and around humans, and explored what that meant.